1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing apparatus such as a printer, and to an adjustment pattern printing method that is used for the printing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. H10-329381 (1998) discloses a process for adjusting a printing position of dots by inkjet printing (hereafter, this will also be referred to as a printing position adjustment process or registration process). More specifically, a “reference pattern” is printed by a reference nozzle array, after which a plurality of “shifted patterns”, which are printed from a different nozzle array whose printing position is shifted a little at a time from the reference pattern, are printed over the reference pattern. Then based on the amount that the printing position of the shifted pattern is shifted and the position of the inflection point of the optical reflectivity, an amount of landing position error of ink droplets is calculated and the ejection timing that the print head ejects ink is corrected.
However, in the technology disclosed in the publication above, there is a problem in that a relatively large amount of media or ink is required for the registration process, and the processing time is long. There is also a need for a more precise registration process.